Counting the carbon cost of the EU's woods

BRUSSELS, Aug 8 The woody core of EU climate
strategy, biomass, has won its place because the bloc deems it
carbon neutral, an assumption that hides fatal flaws in its
credentials, critics say.

Increasingly, the EU relies on biomass - covering anything
from olive stones to old blackcurrant bushes - to generate heat
and power.

For the purposes of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, biomass
used as fuel is counted as carbon neutral. The underlying
assumption is its emissions are offset by the planting of a new
tree. Felled wood, until burnt, is a carbon store.

The reality is much more complicated, say environmentalists,
who are concerned creative accounting is belying the true state
of the world's forests, while EU climate goals slip from grasp.

"You're assuming the whole world has started reducing
emissions from its own use and is improving its land management
and that's a total fantasy," Pieter de Pous, policy director at
the European Environmental Bureau, said.

Demand for biomass, most commonly in the form of wood
pellets that can easily be transported, has leapt since the EU
in 2007 set its 2020 climate goals, which include cutting carbon
emissions by 20 percent and increasing the share of renewables
in the energy mix to 20 percent.

National renewable energy action plans drawn up by EU states
show around 50 percent of green fuel will come from biomass.

Officially, the EU is meeting its carbon cutting and
renewable goals. The first danger is that shipping wood pellets
and then burning them adds to, rather than lowers emissions.

"The point to remember is that the smoke that directly comes
out of the chimney burning biomass pollutes the same as the
emissions from coal," Robbie Blake, biofuels campaigner at
Friends of the Earth, said.

Another consequence, the wood industry says, is that the
demand for wood pellets is distorting the market.

The European Panel Federation, which represents makers of
wood board, says costs for its raw materials have been driven
up, while use of wood for biomass is subsidised under policies
to encourage renewables.

It wants the carbon life-cycle of wood to be taken into
account and more wood to be used in construction and furniture,
where it acts as a carbon store until it is recycled for
firewood at the end of its life.

The body quotes an industry estimate that a 4 percent rise
in Europe's use of wood as a material, rather than a fuel, would
sequester an extra 150 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

A CARBON STORE CUPBOARD?

Whether treating furniture as a carbon store can help to
save the planet is a moot point if it is shipped from countries
where it is not accounted for at the point of harvesting.

Beyond the EU rules, the United Nations' Kyoto framework
does not cover all nations. The United States never ratified the
1997 Kyoto pact, while Canada and Russia have said they will not
set new Kyoto targets.

These countries are likely to be the leading suppliers of
wood, especially Russia, home to a fifth of all forests.

"One way or another, an awful lot of emissions from forests
look like being completely overlooked," John Lanchbery,
principal climate change advisor for the Royal Society for the
Protection of the Birds, said.

He cautiously welcomed European Commission proposals to
tighten its accounting, published earlier this year and up for
further debate in the final quarter.

Although they do not close every loophole, they go further
than U.N. rules because they aim to map the carbon consequences
of changes to agricultural as well as to forestry land.

But they do not set any targets for emissions or change the
ETS assumption biomass-use for power is carbon-neutral.

Efforts to over-rule that would be likely to meet stiff
resistance from the most wooded EU nations, as well as the big
utilities, which would be required to offset far more emissions
through the Emissions Trading Scheme.

The Commission said it is "looking into the possibility of
sustainability criteria", although it doesn't have a precise
time-line yet.
(Additional reporting by Stephanie Ebbs, editing by William
Hardy)

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